Photo shows the M/V Tutor sinking after it was struck by a Houthi unmanned vessel on Wednesday, June 12, 2024.
A cargo ship has sunk in the Red Sea a week after it was damaged in a deadly sea drone attack by Yemen’s Houthi movement, British maritime authorities and salvagers say. The Tutor, a Liberian-flagged, Greek-owned bulk carrier, was hit on the stern by an explosive-filled uncrewed surface vessel (USV). The attack killed a crew member from the Philippines who was initially reported missing, according to the US.
The Tutor is believed to be the second ship sunk by the Iran-backed Houthis since they began attacking merchant vessels in the region in November. It was also the second fatal attack over the same period. The Houthis, who control much of north-western Yemen, say their attacks are a show of support for the Palestinians in the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. They have claimed – often falsely – that they are targeting ships only linked to Israel, the US or the UK.
US and European warships have been deployed to the critical waterway since December as part of an international task force to protect commercial shipping in the crucial waterway. The US and UK have also carried out air and missile strikes on what they say are Houthi military targets in Yemen since January, but so far the Houthis have not been deterred.
Here it comes!
The Tutor had reportedly just completed a port call in Russia and was bound for Egypt when it was hit by a USV last Wednesday, about 66 nautical miles (122km) south-west of the Houthi-controlled Yemeni port of Hudaydah. The cargo ship started slowly taking on water after the attack, which the US military’s Central Command said resulted in severe flooding and damage to the engine room. One member of the 22-strong Filipino crew believed to have been working in the engine room was reported missing, while the rest of the crew abandoned ship and were rescued by a US Navy helicopter and warship.
Houthi military spokesman Yahya Sarea claimed at the time that the Tutor was “destroyed” following an attack by “a drone boat and a number of ballistic missiles and drones”, which he said was “dedicated to the mujahideen in Gaza”. White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Monday that the missing crew member was killed, although there has been no confirmation from the Philippines government.
Comment: The M/V Tutor was struck by both marine drones and missiles. I saw a video of a marine drone striking the ship in the engine room. Hell of an explosion. The bridge crew saw it coming. A second explosion hit amidships. I wonder if our ships and/or aircraft were at least monitoring the attack, even if they couldn’t do anything about it. I thought we would have greatly reduced the Houthi threat to shipping by this time, but it doesn’t appear to be going in the right direction. We would never deter them, but I thought we’d reduce their capability by now.
Maybe we should be organizing escorted convoys so we can see the attacks coming. I don’t know if we have the ships and aircraft to do this efficiently or if international shipping would go along with it, But I would think our larger drones could at least provide close surveillance over the convoys.
Another idea is to conduct much closer surveillance over possible Houthi launch areas. I know we lost at least two of our large, expensive drones doing that, but why not add maritime and ground surveillance. Later in my time in 10th SFG(A), we had a new mission, strategic intelligence collection and target acquisition (SICTA). We would infiltrate in small teams, dig hides overnight, observe and report. We weren’t thrilled with the mission. Who wants to live in a hole in the ground for days or weeks at a time? Perhaps smaller drones would increase the effectiveness of these SICTA missions. But I doubt we have the stomach for this on the national level.
This post [by Tuomo Rusila] was a very good answer to a Wash Post hit piece on Ukraine for it’s ratio of combat to logistical troops, or “tooth to tail” ratio (T3R).
“Zelensky’s office announced that of the 1 M who have been mobilized, only ~300 k have fought at the front lines. No one has explained where those 700 k are — or what they have been doing.”
I can help with that; it’s called tooth-to-tail-ratio, T3R. It’s normal in peace and war.
But no one has ever asked: What is the Russian T3R in Ukraine supporting its 500k to 800k troops? The photo text passage [below] on current Russian T3R is from: “Lessons from the Russo-Ukrainian conflict: the primacy of logistics over strategy” by Ronald Ti and Christopher Kinsey.
“The value for a modern army lies in reflecting relative force ratios in favour of logistic and support troops due to the essential nature of the former in enabling “frontline” combat power. This ratio is known as the “Tooth To Tail Ratio” or “T3R”. The T3R is the ratio of combat personnel (tooth) to support personnel (tail) derived by using gross numbers of personnel assigned to each broad function. Clearly, definitions of what comprises “support” and “combat” personnel are crucial, nevertheless the T3R can be used as a rough indication. The findings are that in virtually all Western militaries T3R’s are relatively low: for example, the US Army T3R has been quoted in the vicinity of 0.1, meaning that there are ten US Army “support” personnel for each one US Army “combat” soldier (Mc Grath Citation2012, 5-6). On the other hand, T3R’s are much higher in the Russian military. The equivalent T3R in the Russian military has been estimated to be around 6 by some estimates, reflecting “guesstimates” of 6 “combat” personnel for each one “support” personnel. The T3R of 6 for the Russian military overall is substantially higher than the US T3R of 0.1. However, imprecise these figures, both empirically and according to expert opinion, a significantly lower proportion of Russian logistic troops in equivalent-sized echelons seems well evident (Vershinin Citation 2021).”
Given 6/7 of 500,000 as RuAF “Teeth” and a 2,000km front, it works out to ~214 Russians per kilometer. And a lot of that front is along the Dnipro River. We haven’t seen that Russian force density on Ukrainian front line Drone videos. And it gets worse. Given 6/7 of 800,000 as RuAF teeth and a 2,000 km front, that’s ~342 Russians per kilometer with the same Dnipro river problem. Even taking into account the fact militaries tend to put two formations forward and one back at company level going up, that is, 16 front line platoons out of a 15,000 man division roughly ~16% of unit strength. Ukrainian videos of the front lines still do not show that level of Russian force density, that is:
16% of 214 is ~34 mobiks per km.
16% of 342 is ~55 mobiks per km.
And please carefully note that after 28 months of war Russian logistics still lacks pallets, forklifts and material handling cranes with much smaller trucks. Which means a lot of troops have to be involved in back breaking manual labor all the time.
Short form: The RuAF tooth to tail ratio has to be something like 1/7 (14% teeth) rather than 6/7 (85% teeth). AFU using Russian wood boxes and trucks say they take a day to move one load of boxed ammo on a 90 km round trip. And they have a 3/7 T3R.
Yes, the RuAF use contractors for building fortifications, but not anywhere near the frontline doing ammo and food logistics. Either most Russian combat units are behind the front busy loading and unloading stuff or most of any given Russian combat unit is unloading stuff at any given time. There is quite a bit of order of battle (Orbat) data from the West on the invasion force and from the AFU that have cited various numbers aggregating the RuAF and LDNR irregulars over time. What stands out is that there is no strong evidence of dedicated Russian logistics elements.
My WW2 SW Pacific and China-Burma-India theater logistics historical research is screaming at me that Russian mobiks are being used on an ad hoc basis as labor gangs, as we have seen videos of the Russians using regulars to load/unload munitions and materiel. Photographic proof of this was visible throughout the Cold War such that Col Ralph Peters, a US Army intel officer, used it in a passage of his late 1980’s book RED ARMY, talking about the “animal labor” involved.
This parallels very strongly what General Douglas MacArthur had to do in the SWPA theater with local New Guinea natives, African-American combat & support units, plus rear area anti-aircraft units, in New Guinea. Before MacArthur’s forces got to the Philippines and could hire Filipinos for labor gangs.
Peters aside, when Cold War era G-2 looked at Cold War era Soviet formations, they seem to have just counted logistical TO&E versus combat TO&E’s to get that six out of seven Soviet troops are “Teeth.” Ti & Kinsey’s article shows no one has bothered to update this practice since the Russo-Ukrainian War kicked off in Feb 2022. Whatever the real answer for Russian Army tooth to tail ratios, Western military intelligence on Russian logistics has been “Garbage in, Garbage out” for eight decades.
If as visible evidence suggests that so-called Russian combat elements are used on as labor gangs on ad hoc but regular basis to do logistics tasks. You get something that works poorly but is “coherent.” And by coherent, I mean in the sense that Russians have a primitive logistics load/unload capability that is compatible with unskilled conscripts doubling up as logistics troops.
That is exactly how the Union Army worked in the American Civil War. Each regiment’s own troops were a cross-section of the general population’s civilian skills and could perform most construction and logistics tasks. The Russian Army of 2024… not so much. The problem for the Russian Army is that Mobiks do not represent a economic/skills cross section of the Russian Federation. This drives Russian front line force densities through the floor and gives the Russians a closer to Western tooth to tail ratio as the Russians simply lack manpower saving forklifts, telehandlers, ISO containers and pallets. Given Mobiks are expending large amounts of time in back breaking manual labor logistics. This affects Russian combat skill as lots of manual labor prevents training and rehearsals for future operations in the field from happening. It is a big reason for the high Russian loss ratios compared to Ukrainians in all operations.
Note as well the Russian approach to provisioning. The February 2022 convoy to Kyiv had three days of MREs and then they were ordered to forage like a 17th century army via stealing chickens from Ukrainian farmers, with the Russian officers selling supplies “nalevo” after that order came down to supplement their paychecks. The level that the Russian officers did that “nalevo” supply scam before that order is a good, question given the standard 25% “ghost soldier” payroll scam that was going on Army and VDV wide.
Western military truck logistics has a very high degree of load visibility as to what is in which truck going to which unit. This is not the case for the Russians in Ukraine. The whole Russian military logistical model seems to be, by any Western military logistical measures, ad hoc and it was likely designed that way to maximize opportunities for theft by the Russian command staff.
Despite all of this visible evidence since Feb. 2022, senior Western intel, and most open-source analysts, are “mirror imaging” so hard on Western mechanized logistics that they simply cannot accept the evidence of their eyes in terms of Ukrainian front-line Russian Army force density versus the implications for Russian manual labor logistical tooth to tail ratios.
Alex Vershinin, like every other Western logistician, was blindsided by the 80 year/four generation Western intelligence failure to notice the Russian Army doesn’t use mechanized logistics ‘enhancers’ to move its ammo and supplies. The psychological label for all this “rejecting of data that doesn’t fit” behavior is “Directed Cognition.” AKA Believing what you want to believe and rejecting all other evidence. It is the definition of professional incompetence for an intelligence analyst or intelligence institution. We are at the “Burn it all down and start over with new people and blank slate assumptions” as far as Western intelligence of Russian T3R military logistics are concerned.
Comment: This is a long and convoluted twitter thread. It’s a matryoshka doll of twitter threads. But navigating through the whole convoluted thing will reveal a wealth of Trent Telenko insights into the Russian Army logistical system. I see that logistical system as a flashback to days of the Soviet Army with its first, second and third strategic echelons with hundreds of divisions filled with millions of conscripts, plenty of manual labor to manually move mountains of supplies. I’m surprised the Gerasimov modernizations did nothing to update this system.
What this entire thread points out is that the numbers of troops bandied about by so many paint a false picture of this war. The number of forces engaged in combat are a fraction of the forces mobilized… on both sides. That fact is missed by analysts like Ti, Kinsey and Alex Vershinin who should know better according to Telenko. (And Vershinin does understand logistics.) The Washington Post piece that set Telenko off is equally bewildered by this tooth to tail ratio.
“Syrsky has been tasked with auditing the existing armed forces to find more combat-eligible troops, after Zelensky’s office recently announced that of the 1 million people who have been mobilized, only about 300,000 have fought at the front lines. But nearly a month after his promotion, no one in the military leadership or the presidential administration has explained where those 700,000 are — or what they have been doing.”
What are those 700,000 Ukrainian troops doing? They’re moving all those beans and bullets from the Polish border to the front along with every other necessary support function necessary to keep those 300,000 Ukrainian troops in the fight. It’s been said by many, including here, that “Amateurs talk strategy; professionals talk logistics.” I do believe this is the key to how this war ends. Neither Russia nor Ukraine will be ground down by front line attrition or beaten by clever maneuver. Defeat and victory will be precipitated on which side can disrupt the other’s logistical network. Russia has wasted a lot of time and resources on hitting Ukrainian apartment complexes and have only recently made a concerted effort to shut down Ukraine’s power grid. Ukraine has made a point of targeting Russian ammo dumps and all manner of trucks. They really need to concentrate on the Russian rail system from Rostov on Don to Ukraine. They’ve only just started sending their drones that way. The end of this war is not yet in sight.
The English text of President Putins speech of 14 June is now available at the link below.
This long document explains, from the Russian point of view, how we got to where we are today. It also explains Russias position vis a vs the West and of course Washington.
In my opinion, one cannot intelligently discuss the current situation without reading and understanding this speech.
Having read this and noting the rejection of Russias latest peace proposal, I have just cancelled our planned European holiday. That cancellation , by the way, is not because I believe I will survive coming events by staying here but because I think it is preferable to die instantly in a nuclear exchange compared to alternatives such as being submerged in a tsunami of refugees.
Cheese paring and arguing about the minor details of a third rate made up country that is Ukraine are irrelevant.
Today is the 249th birthday of the US Army. I was going to post a 1979 version of the “I am the Infantry” presentation from then Fort Benning, now Fort Moore, but I figured it’s probably a little too parochial for the entire Army. I first saw it in 1976 when I reported for IOBC and saw it again in 1980 for IOAC. Back then live actors in period uniforms accompanied the presentation. It was inspiring. The YouTube version doesn’t do it justice.
Ivan Havrylyuk, Deputy Minister of Defense against the background of the logo of the Unmanned Systems Forces, June 11, 2024
The Armed Forces of Ukraine have introduced a new military branch aimed at supporting and developing units of unmanned systems, according to a report by Militarnyi. Representatives from the Armed Forces and the Ministry of Defense presented the Unmanned Systems Force, a pioneering branch in the world of military organizations on June 11, 2024 in Kyiv. The symbol for this new branch is a swallow.
The Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Vadym Sukharevsky, has been appointed as the Commander of the Unmanned Systems Force. During the presentation, he stated that the creation of this new structure is a response to modern battlefield requirements and is based on contemporary military experience. “We showed the whole world today that Ukraine has moved away from a conservative approach. Today we set a precedent. Thus, we are ready to dictate the rules of this war for further success,” stated Sukharevsky.
Ivan Havryliuk, the First Deputy Minister of Defense, added that the new branch will enable further strikes on the enemy at all possible distances, from the front line to the Urals. According to him, Ukraine is the only country in the world that is already completing the establishment of such a branch.
As of today, the Unmanned Systems Forces (USF) are already operating in test mode and will be further improved according to requirements and needs.
Speaking about tasks and functions, Vadym Sukharevsky said that the newly created branch will focus on interaction with existing units of unmanned systems, their support, strengthening and increasing capabilities. “In no way will we remove units from the brigades that are on the front lines today, it will be destructive. We will take on specific tasks and provide support,” said Sukharevsky.
The branch will be tasked with providing units with drones, their support, recruiting and training specialists, as well as planning military operations involving unmanned systems.
In addition, USF will gather experience and interact with manufacturers of unmanned systems. According to the Commander, the new line of troops will focus on cooperation with manufacturers of domestic drones. The branch already maintains contacts with 90% of Ukrainian manufacturers and actively communicates with them.
Sukharevsky noted that today the government has currently contracted and is procuring products from over 125 manufacturers. “The president’s task of producing more than a million FPV drones will be fulfilled and moreover, it will be exceeded. It’s guaranteed.
With regard to the supply and operation of other systems, their provision with all necessary components, there is a certain element here that we have manufacturers who are not ready for large-scale production. The state is working to scale production of the best models. This program, which the state is now launching, will allow for the next year to provide our units with the necessary means,” the Commander added. “The president’s task of producing more than a million FPV drones will be fulfilled and moreover, it will be exceeded. It’s guaranteed.”
Comment: This is good news. It’s no secret that Ukraine started early in developing drone warfare and is ahead of all others. The effort has been decentralized in training, employment and in the manufacturing of drones. This was good for innovation but not so good for moving to the next level in what has become a critical capability in this war. The best drone designs need to be mass produced on a wide scale, not just by a few boutique manufacturers. Local innovations in the use of EW, AI and tactics must be spread quickly across the force. The Unmanned Systems Force should make all this happen. I’m also glad to see the intention is to create and train new drone units without detracting from the drone units already deployed with the combat brigades.
I Ignored the nuclear dimension up above and was reminded on an English site that I’d done so. One cannot ignore that dimension. When I read various accounts of the current condition of American ground forces – “boutique army” and all the rest of it – I sometimes feel we are stuck in the thinking of those D-Day times.
In a couple of years, no more, the American Air, Naval and Ground Forces and the industrial capacity to back them up shot from being a neglected backwater – third rate in most respects – to being the military superpower. Able to cope with heavy and prolonged fighting in two theatres with enough to spare to deal with anything else that came along. I doubt there’s ever been a military revolution like it.
We still assess military capability in those terms. We’re still stuck in those times. Big is best and with near a trillion dollar budget, no matter how much is eaten away by the pork barrel, big still means American. And for minor wars big certainly is best, if that big can get deployed right. But for existential wars does that massive armoury mean anything? One man with a rusty rifle standing on a frontier somewhere will do. If it’s recognised that he is the tripwire that will trigger nuclear war.
For the same reason I look with wonderment at what the Russians are doing. Extensive mobilisation, armaments industry gearing up – for what purpose? Plenty of work for them to do in minor wars, certainly, as we’re seeing at the moment, but for what purpose is shell production being ramped up to five million shells a year for the indefinite future if, in a major war in the European theatre, far less is needed to trigger nuclear?
From the very start, in 2022, we’ve seen the Russians holding back the bulk of their forces, building them up now to a great degree, in case NATO came in in force. Do the Russians not understand that if NATO did come in in force it wouldn’t matter who had the best generals or the best logistics or the best army. It wouldn’t matter because the inevitable consequence would be mushroom clouds. Do the Europeans not understand that that would work the other way too?
Developments in missile technology mean that even in conventional warfare it’s possible to devastate a country without ever needing to set foot in it. But even ignoring that, there can be no more titanic battles for Berlin, or massive enterprises like those D-Day operations, if whichever of the sides is losing can unleash a nuclear response that will destroy both.
Not so much tripwire forces, perhaps. It would in reality take more than the man with the rusty rifle to set off Armageddon. But threshold forces. For the major wars of today you need no more than sufficient force to be able to say, “Defeat this lot and it’s curtains for both of us.” And that threat is enough, as it has been since the 50’s, to ensure that the two major nuclear powers never go toe to toe in full scale conventional warfare.
Zelensky’s only chance ever was to get the Americans to deploy that threat. He failed. Now the Europeans are seeking the same end. The only chance the Europeans had to bring this war to the conclusion they want is to get the Americans, finally, to deploy that threat for them. To risk nuclear war for them.
The Europeans’ll fail too. The American President, no matter who he is, will not risk Chicago frying in order to give the Europeans, or indeed his own hawks, the chance of winning a scrubby little war thousands of miles away. That’s too big a risk by far, for too small a gain, for any American President to take.
If you’ll allow me, TTG – we’re a way away from the Filthy Thirteen now and maybe too far away for this comment section – I’ll set out the reasoning that led me to that conclusion. I’ve thought for a couple of years now that the Americans would never go all the way to win this Ukrainian war. And that barring the Americans risking going all the way – isn’t that what Breedlove’s really asking for – there was no other way to win it.
It boils down to nuclear.
The Europeans are a dead loss militarily and have also lost the substantial moral and diplomatic credibility they possessed until quite recently. Not so much a busted flush. More politicians who’ve now been revealed always to have been a busted flush.
So they can posture to their heart’s content. They are like the scrawny man in a pub fight bellowing “let me get at him” while being grateful enough to his companions holding him back so he can’t.
The Americans are a different kettle of fish. They have sufficient military power to give the Russians a hard time, if they chose, even though they have no forces over here to speak off. And they have credible nuclear. That shuts off escalation to any serious extent. Were the Americans to engage in full scale conventional war with the Russians, and were the Russians to start losing – unlikely in the extreme but consider the case – the Russians would use nuclear weapons.
A revealing interview with Colonel Trukhan confirms that. He’s talking of the attempt to breach the “Surovikin Line”. He states matter of factly – almost in passing – that had we put in sufficient armour and CAS and all the rest of it to breach that line, the Russians would have repelled the attack with tactical nuclear as a matter of course. The recent tactical nuclear exercises underline that point. There is no winning against the Russians even if we could put credible forces in the field.
Works the other way. If the American forces were fully committed and were losing, they’d do the same. There is no winning against the Americans, not if they go for it hard. No winning for anyone, really, which is the basis of MAD and has been since the ’50’s.
So the Americans are not going to escalate past pinpricks such as we’re seeing now. And we know that, as in Syria, there are comprehensive deconfliction arrangements in place in order for both sides to ensure serious escalation is avoided in this theatre.So why the posturing? Why Macron’s arm waving or ours?Partly a hope the Americans will put a tripwire force in. Partly in preparation for the post-war blame game.
On the post-war blame game, all will wish to say “We could have won but our Allies didn’t back us up. So it’s their fault, not ours.” We’ve seen hints that the Americans in particular are being criticised for holding back and sometimes the Germans come in for some stick on that count too. Probably the Italians will as well, given they’ve disassociated themselves from escalation.
The blame game’s not a trivial consideration. This is going to be, as both Stoltenberg and Johnson have emphasised recently, a serious blow to the credibility of NATO and of the EU/UK. Being able to blame others will be a lifeline the respective politicians will clutch at so we’ll see, are seeing, a lot of it. And the respective electorates will need to believe them if they are to be kept acquiescent for the coming Cold War II. “For as long as it takes” will remain the spur even after Ukraine itself is neutralised.
The blame game is also a consideration in the States. There we already see one party blaming the other for not agreeing to escalate. “x is the man who lost Ukraine” is a reproach none will wish to suffer. We see that even in the interview linked to.
But there is perhaps more to the arm waving that that. We could be hoping, probably are, that the Americans will put a tripwire force in, We could put troops in overtly in the hope that when those troops get wiped out the Americans, for very shame, would be forced to come in overtly themselves. Or we could provoke the Russians with deep strikes in the hope the Russians would do the escalation for us. In the hope that the Russians would strike at our military installations in Europe or knock out our ISR assets. That could also bring the Americans in.
As said, the Americans have nothing of substance in the theatre but they do have tripwire forces. The 101st Airborne, already positioned, could be sent in as a tripwire force – in the expectation that the Russians would not dare to attack them for fear of the Americans using nuclear.
That’s Macron’s Hail Mary, and of the others talking that way. It’d be a gamble that the Russians would be scared to attack overtly deployed American troops directly – something that is never done – for fear the Americans would be pushed to that final escalation.
But this time it would be done. Putin made that clear at the Tashkent press conference. He reinforced that warning just now at the St Petersburg press conference. It’s more than likely the warning was also given to the Americans directly during deconfliction arrangement contacts. The gamble that the Russians would not dare to attack an American tripwire force for fear of escalation to nuclear is therefore not a gamble Biden will be prepared to take.
He made that clear recently. Brussels/HMG will therefore not risk escalation in the hope of getting the Americans to follow suit. MAD will continue to operate even as this proxy war comes to its end.
Comment: I can quibble about some of the points made by our English Outsider, but his conclusion that MAD will continue to operate is correct. Our policy of escalation management is an obvious effort to avoid the risk of a nuclear exchange or a crisis in the Kremlin that could lead to a nuclear exchange. Putin’s constant talk of conducting a nuclear attack on Western Europe is far more a tactic to manage our process of escalation management than it is a real threat to incinerate London, Berlin and Paris.
English Outsider is adamant that Russia has and continues to hold back on the application of military force. That’s true for nuclear weapons use, but Russian forces have not held back in the application of all other means of military force. It became quickly apparent that the much vaunted Russian military machine could not live up to its reputation. They still have plenty of meat to feed into the grinder, but they had to resort to North Korean artillery ammunition and Iranian drones to keep up their invasion against a much smaller Ukrainian force. Their armored columns have given way to T-62s, Scooby Doo vans, Chinese golf carts and motorcycles. They are not holding back and their ultimate victory is not close to being inevitable.
Concerning tripwire forces, they would only function in the manner described by English Outsider if they were in place before the Russian invasion. If US or other NATO trainers are introduced into Ukraine, I doubt Russia would hold back on targeting them. In fact, they would become a priority target just as the Abrams tanks did. And I’m also certain that France, Poland, the Baltics and the US are aware these trainers would be targets and would accept the risk without resorting to nuclear retaliation. France seems fully willing to accept that risk.
How do you assess this war: a regional conflict between Ukraine and Russia, a proxy war between Russia and NATO, or an already emerging war for world dominance between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the USA? And does such assessment influence your judgement about the specific policies of the parties involved?
I foremost understand this war through the prism of the Russian GenStab: as a continuation of Pudding’s politics through other means. Several times over the last 20+ years, Pudding clearly said that Russia is in the state of war with the entire West (and especially the USA). Secondly, I understand it as Pudding’s war of extermination of Ukraine: for him, it’s entirely unacceptable for Ukraine to exist (at least not as an entity separate from Russia).
As next, I see this conflict in which Ukraine was forced to realise that it must completely (re)establish itself as independent from Russia: as a sovereign country with its own history, traditions, language, politics, and future. And it must enforce that way of thinking upon not only the Russians – but its ‘Western allies’, too. Thus, I see this conflict as an ‘ultimate version of the Ukrainian independence war’.
With other words: I do not see this conflict from the typically Western-centric point of view (think it was Mark Galeotti who described it as ‘Western narcissism’), and thus can’t see it as a ‘proxy war’. It’s a ‘proxy war’ only for those who think Ukrainians have no own minds (or are some sort of ‘misguided Russians’) and were played around by outside powers into separating from Russia: as a war based on some sort of sinister plot. I find that way of thinking outright dumb, definitely primitive, and certainly misguided.
From my point of view, the situation is the same like in Libya or Syria of the early 2010s: nope, there wasn’t any kind of ‘Western regime-change plot’, but the people of Libya and then the people of Syria rose against murderous regimes that were terrorising them for 40+ years. Neither needed some sort of ‘CIA-Mossad-al-Qaeda conspiracy’ to come to that idea and it was only after that point that the West became involved, and even then: only to a limited degree (indeed, in both cases the country went down the sink precisely because the West then refused to impose itself upon the locals and preferred to accept interests of other foreign powers for the sake of apeasment).
Of course, there are lots of foreign powers involved in Ukraine. There is lots of playing with Ukraine – especially by the Biden-Blinken-Sullivan gang (the EU has no coherent enough foreign policy to do anything similar; it’s rather so that Scholz is doing his stuff, Macron doing his, and everybody else their own….). And yes: because the West is supplying arms, money, and political support, the war is likely to ‘resemble’ a ‘proxy war’ for many. However, it was nobody else than the Russians who drove Ukrainians into taking things into their own hands, it was nobody else than Russians who invaded Ukraine (Pudding admitted this already back in 2015), and it is nobody else than Ukrainians who are defending their country, nation and their sheer existence as Ukrainians. That’s the bare essence of this conflict, and that’s always going to remain that way. Which is why this is also a war that is going to force Ukrainians into re-defining the role of themselves as a country and a nation in the future.
(….where I think Ukrainians should always keep in mind: when there is a huge country in Eastern Europe, with a population of some 37 million… then the West is not ‘horny’ about accepting it as ‘equal’, at least not without securing its own interests as first. ….and mind that the ‘West’, actually, needs Ukraine more than the other way around.)
Finally, this is a war I hope might force the West into fundamental reforms of the way it’s ruled (because what we have right now is, simply expressed, a ‘kleptocracy with limited pluralism’, but by no means ‘democracy’). This is what is adding the element of ‘war for the World dominance’ to the entire situation: if our oligarchy and its private and corporate interests continue dominating the politics and governance, and remain dependent on extracting profits from their cooperation with the PRC (and, latest analyses of the situation are indicative of both the USA and the EU being hopelessly unable of disentangling their commercial interests from Beijing, i.e. remaining neck-deep involved there), then our systems are not an inch better than any other dictatorships out there.
Comment: I agree with this succinct analysis by Tom Cooper on the nature of this Ukraine-Russia conflict. It’s a far more reasoned discussion than me shouting “THE UKRAINIANS ARE FIGHTING FOR THEIR VERY EXISTENCE, YOU DUMB SON OF A BITCH!” But that’s the bottom line of Cooper’s answer. However, he doesn’t give the West a free pass.
Of course the Kremlin sees this differently. In their eyes, they are fighting the West and the US in particular. But most importantly, they are fighting to reestablish Greater Russia, “to reunite the Russian people together – in its entirety of Great Russians, Belarusians and Little Russians” as Petr Akopov put it on 26 February 2022 in his RIA Novosti victory editorial.
Although the collective West does want Ukraine within the Western bloc, they have a funny way of showing it. The Eastern Europeans see a continuation of centuries of Kremlin aggression and act accordingly. Western Europe and the US seem just as focused on preserving the Russian state and avoiding a nuclear confrontation as they are on ensuring Ukrainian independence. Our insane policy of escalation management is proof of this. Insane as it is, it is not as insane as seeking a nuclear reaction from a Russia facing not just a lack of a victory, but a real loss. I think this is a fine line we are trying to straddle.
Note: I am not a lawyer and the following is not intended as a legal treatment of the issues presented. I welcome expert opinions from any lawyers among the Committee.
“The Ninth Circuit ruling today demonstrates that the court saw through LAUSD’s monkey business, and in so doing, it made clear that American’s [sic] cherished rights to self determination, including the sacred right of bodily autonomy in matters of health, are not negotiable. This is a great triumph for the truth, decency, and what is right.”
This is the statement issued by the Health Freedom Defense Fund (HFDF) on a recent ruling by the Ninth Circuit appeal court against a Vaxx mandate imposed on all employees by the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). The LAUSD Vaxx mandate is currently suspended and was originally implemented with the sanction of the loss of employment. The ruling covered at least three important points:-
The court recognized that the COVID-19 Vaxx is not a “traditional vaccine” as it does not prevent infection and transmission
The court recognized that the original ruling (in LAUSD’s favor) did not extend to “forced medical treatment” for the recipient’s benefit (the LAUSD had cited the precedent set by a 1905 decision on mandated smallpox inoculations)
Although the mandate is not currently in force, the court dismissed a mootness argument given that the LAUSD “expressly reserved the option to again consider imposing a vaccine mandate” (quote from the opinion summary)
Here is a paragraph from the HFDF’s statement:
The court declined to give any deference to pronouncements by the CDC that the “COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective.” As the court asked rhetorically, “safe and effective” for what? The majority pointed to HFDF’s allegation that CDC had changed the definition of “vaccine” in September 2021, striking the word “immunity” from that definition. The court also noted HFDF’s citations to CDC statements that the vaccines do not prevent transmission, and that natural immunity is superior to the vaccines.
HFDF is a non-profit fighting Vaxx mandates. Their full statement on the result of the appeal is here:
Comment: Our Barbara Ann found this decision by the 9th Circuit Court to be important enough to suggest it as a post. It is a legal decision that a California school district could not mandate Covid vaccinations as a condition of employment although the district already did away with the mandate. I would have glossed over the decision without another thought, but maybe I’m missing something.
It looks like the 9th Circuit decided the Covid vaccine is just not that good a vaccine. Would they have made this decision if it was wildly effective? If they were faced with the decision back in 1905, would they have struck down the mandated smallpox vaccination? Back then, teams of NYC police and doctors roamed the streets forcibly vaccinating recalcitrant New Yorkers. We didn’t go that far during the Covid pandemic.
I also wonder how the 9th Circuit would decide if a challenge is made to our military’s mandate on vaccines such as the annual flu vaccine. The efficacy of that vaccine is perennially in doubt, but it is still mandated in our military. This is from the USMC implementation message:
“3.a. Per refs (a), (b), and (c), all Marine Corps active and reserve component personnel shall receive the 2023-2024 seasonal Influenza vaccine(s) unless medically or administratively exempt. The Marine Corps active component shall ensure 100 percent of personnel are compliant with DoD policy (vaccinated or approved medical or administrative exemption) no later than 15 Dec 23. The Marine Corps reserve component shall vaccinate at least 90 percent of required personnel no later than the DoD goal of 15 Jan 24.“
“Filthy Thirteen” member Clarence Ware applies war paint to Charles Plauda, June 5, 1944. The idea was McNiece’s, to honor his Native American heritage and to energize the men for the danger ahead. (National Archives)
Officially designated as the 1st Demolition Section of the Regimental Headquarters Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR), 101st Airborne Division, the Filthy Thirteen earned the name while training in England. Instead of using their daily water rations to bathe and shave, they instead used it to cook wild game poached from the manor house next to their training area. It didn’t help that they were also “the most difficult, insubordinate, and undisciplined individuals in the U.S. Army while in garrison,” as a 2022 article in the U.S. military’s NCO Journal described them.
“We never took care of our barracks or any other thing, or sanitation, and we were always restricted to camp,” recalled the unit’s leader, Jake “McNasty” McNiece. “But we went AWOL every weekend that we wanted to and we stayed as long as we wanted till we returned back, because we knew they needed us badly for combat. And it would just be a few days in the brig. We stole jeeps. We stole trains. We blew up barracks. We blew down trees. We stole the colonel’s whiskey and things like that.”
The Filthy Thirteen were dropped into Normandy on June 6, 1944, with the mission of destroying bridges over the Douve River to protect the assault forces’ move inland from Utah Beach. When the day came, they dropped with the 3rd Battalion, 506th PIR, but half of the 13 were killed, captured or wounded during the jump, including their officer, Lt. Charles Mellen. What was left was led by McNiece, then a private, whose American Indian heritage inspired the men to cut their hair in a “mohawk” homage before making the jump.
The Army Air Forces, assuming the demolition team was dead, bombed the bridges anyway. The Filthy Thirteen then went on collecting stragglers and aided with the capture of the key French town of Carentan. But that wasn’t the end of their role in World War II Europe. They would jump into occupied Holland during Operation Market Garden, where their mission was to secure three bridges near Eindhoven. They were split up after that.
Fearing Market Garden might be their last combat jump, some of the Filthy Thirteen joined the Pathfinders, specialized units that set up drop zones in occupied or disputed territory for resupply missions. McNiece and others found themselves being dropped in on a Pathfinder mission during the Battle of Bastogne.
Although there were 13 original members, with alternates and replacements, there were more than 13 members of the unit by the end of the war. The nickname caught the public’s imagination after Stars and Stripes reporter Tom Hoge wrote about them in a June 1944 issue. Newspapers back home began repeating the nickname, and it eventually stuck. From there, legends about the Filthy Thirteen, mostly rumors, began to spread into mainstream media. Some of those legends formed the basis of author E.M. Nathanson’s book, “The Dirty Dozen,” which became the movie loved by so many film buffs. Just how much of “The Dirty Dozen” is real can only be known by the Filthy Thirteen. Agnew’s daughter Barbara claims her father said it was about 30% — which is still a lot.
Comment: Soldiers like the Filthy Thirteen sound like my kind of soldiers. I often commented on my first rifle platoon with so many rehab transfers from throughout the brigade. These hooligans were pure hell in garrison, but in the field they could not be beat. I wouldn’t have traded them for all the tea in China. God bless every one of them.
The Army often says they admire this kind of soldier. I think the brass would rather have an Army of goody two shoes. In WWII the Filthy Thirteen were tolerated and later admired in spite of their Article 15s and restrictions to barracks. We had rehab transfers in the mid-70s because the Army couldn’t afford to loose all those young troublemakers. If we were flush with recruits, those troublemakers would have been chaptered out. A decade later, my Company First Sergeant told me of how he would spot a potential NCO by their ability to get at least one Article 15. It was a sign of initiative. At the time, the Army was willing to expunge most Article 15s from the records of senior NCOs to clean up their records. My First Sergeant refused citing his youthful transgressions as a badge of honor.
In 2022, the NCO Journal published an article on the Filthy Thirteen exploring the principles of mission command. It explains how the Army admires and needs the initiative and risk taking of soldiers like the Filthy Thirteen, while bemoaning their hooliganism. I feel that’s wishful thinking. It’s extremely rare to have one without the other. It’s just not natural and maybe even un-American.
The Chang’e-6 probe is seen raising a Chinese flag with a robotic arm on the moon’s dark side. Chang’e 6 lunar rover/Weibo
Hong Kong CNN — China’s Chang’e-6 lunar probe departed from the far side of the moon on Tuesday, moving a step closer to completing an ambitious mission that underlines the country’s rise as a space superpower. In a symbolic moment before takeoff, China also reportedly became the first country to display its national flag on the moon’s far side, which permanently faces away from Earth.
The probe, carrying the first lunar rocks ever collected from the far side of the moon, took off and entered lunar orbit early Tuesday Beijing time, following successful sample collection over the previous two days, according to a statement from the China National Space Administration (CNSA). Its return journey to Earth is estimated to take about three weeks, with a landing expected in China’s Inner Mongolia region around June 25. The successful return of the samples would give China a head start in harnessing the strategic and scientific benefits of expanded lunar exploration – an increasingly competitive field that has contributed to what NASA chief Bill Nelson calls a new “space race.” This is the second time China has collected samples from the moon, after the Chang’e-5 brought back rocks from the near side in 2020.
Earlier this year, Nelson appeared to acknowledge China’s pace – and concerns about its intentions – were driving the American urgency to return to the moon, decades after its Apollo-crewed missions.
Comment: Like NASA administrator Bill Nelson, we must acknowledge that China’s space program is impressive. In addition to several successful Moon missions, China has a working space station and, like us, secret space shuttles doing secret stuff.
During the height of the Cold War, we managed to start cooperating with the Soviets in space with the Apollo-Soyuz mission and eventually building and operating the ISS. I think it’s time to reach out to China to cooperate in space. We can start by inviting a taikonaut onto the ISS. Perhaps Elon could invite a taikonaut or two onto a SpaceX mission. The possibilities of future joint endeavors are endless.
In other space news, the Boeing Starliner finally launched successfully on its way to the ISS and the FAA has approved the next launch of Elon’s Starship.
